


Practice Makes Perfect

by SegaBarrett



Category: Bates Motel (2013), Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: AU end of Season 3 (Bates), Circa 1x10 (BCS), Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bradley hitches a ride out of town with Caleb, and they end up going into business as a con artist team. There may be competition, however...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Bates Motel, nor do I own Better Call Saul, and I make no money from this.

Bradley was shaking with anger, or maybe it was simply despair, or resignation – she wasn’t sure anymore, and all the feelings seemed to bleed into each other. Why wouldn’t Norman come with her? Why was he so obsessed with staying around his mom? 

She kicked some rocks and started down the road; the car hadn’t even made it through the woods, but had stalled hard. She’d abandoned it in favor of hitchhiking. It might be creepy, and it wouldn’t be easy, but she wasn’t sure she really cared much anymore. Her stomach felt empty, and her heart did too. Part of her just wanted to fade away into the woodwork, to give up. Yet there was another part of her that just wouldn’t let her. That part wanted to smack herself across the face and tell her to get it together already. 

She just needed somebody to drive by, and then she could figure the rest of this out when the time came, no problem. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before a large brown and beige van, maybe an RV (Bradley couldn’t keep the difference straight other than that one was on Breaking Bad and one wasn’t) pulled up in front of her. The window rolled down and a man stuck his head out.

“Where you headed?”

“Out of town,” she replied, “Anywhere you can take me, really.”

“How old are you?”

Bradley shrugged.

“Eighteen. Why?”

The man sighed and seemed to turn the idea over in his head.

“All right,” he said eventually, popping the other door open. “Get in.”

She ran around to the other side and climbed up into the passenger’s seat. Now, she was able to see the man properly. He had sandy-brown hair and blue eyes. 

“Nice to meet you.”

“You haven’t met me yet,” Bradley replied. “Who are you anyway?”

The man turned the key in his van and started down the road, and Bradley felt a glimmer of fear. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. Maybe this guy was a serial killer or something, and maybe this was going to turn into some sort of slasher movie kind of deal.

“Name’s Caleb,” the man replied, “And you?”

Bradley hesitated. She was close enough to home that it was possible that he knew of, or knew someone who knew of, Bradley Martin. Then again, maybe not.

“Winnie,” she replied quickly, using her middle name as a quick cover.

“Like ‘the Pooh’?” Caleb inquired, and Bradley glared at him.

“Never was funny, never will be funny. But Winifred’s not really a whole lot better, so… Winnie it is. Whatever. Where are you headed, anyway?”

“Out of the country.”

Bradley blinked at him. 

“Like, Canada?” she asked.

“More like Mexico.”

“That’ll take a long time.”

“Were you trying to get somewhere quickly?”

Bradley shrugged.

“No. No I’m not. I’ll go anywhere.”

Caleb started up the car, but regarded her suspiciously at the same time.

“Are you sure you’re eighteen? I don’t want trouble with the law right now.”

Bradley laughed bitterly.

“Yeah. I promise. Eighteen. Old enough to know better. I’m not some runaway.” Well, she was. That much was true. Hell if she was going to admit it, especially not to this guy who seemed to have a host of his own secrets and flaws. She was probably riding in this car with some kind of serial killer, and she wasn’t that surprised to discover that it didn’t bother her.

Whatever was going to happen would happen. She was done fighting it. Norman had been her last hurrah, and it had failed. Now, she didn’t know what she was, or how she was supposed to define herself. 

Caleb began to drive down the road, giving her cautious glances from time to time as if he was as wary of her as she was of him. That made her feel a little bit bad, but it also felt a little good. Rather than the girl who had been getting crapped on by life this past year, she felt dangerous. She remembered watching an episode of America’s Most Wanted where evil women were getting picked up as hitchhikers and then murdering dudes just for the hell of it. She thought of herself in that role for a moment. If she could be like that, then she wouldn’t have to be afraid of anyone.

But how many people even went on crime sprees alone? Bonnie needed Clyde, and Juliette Lewis had needed some other dude. 

She let out a slow sigh and looked over at Caleb.

“You wanna go on a crime spree?”

He looked at her and laughed.

“Kid, you look like you’re barely out of high school. You’re asking me to go on a crime spree? With you? I’m old enough to be your dad. Hell, my son’s probably older than you.”

“You have a son?” Bradley asked, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t seem like the type of man to have a family. He had that lonely drifter sense about him. Finding out that he had a kid did make the guy seem slightly less like a serial killer, though. 

“Yeah. He’s twenty-two. He’s a good kid. Dylan’s his name.”

Bradley looked at him and blinked, wondering. The man had picked her up right in White Pine Bay, hadn’t he? And the resemblance was uncanny. Not to mention that the world seemed to be getting smaller every day. 

“Dylan Massett?” she asked. “The new kid? I mean, new-ish, I guess. He’s been there a couple years by now. So not that new. But Dylan’s your son?”

“Yeah,” Caleb said simply.

“I can see it. You guys totally look alike.” She blinked at him, realizing she probably shouldn’t be letting him know that she knew Dylan. That was shooting holes in the whole “being dead” deal. 

She let her hands linger over the dashboard. She was less nervous now.

“So what do you do… Caleb? What’s your deal, anyway?”

“Nothing you should be involved with.”

She tilted her head to the side.

“Tell me your secrets. I can help. Let’s do this.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I swear to God, kid, if you get some kind of Amber Alert put out on you, then I’m going to flip out.” Caleb was second-guessing this plan all over again. It didn’t seem like a very good idea to be driving along with this kid behind him, poking her head in between the seats like she had never seen the open road before. He’d made his bed, however, and he’d have to lie in it. If he went back, if he saw Dylan again, then he’d make trouble for the person he loved more than anything else in the world.

“I already told you. No Amber alert. I’m eighteen. And I can look out for myself. I can run any scam you want.”

Caleb stared at her.

“I’m not talking about piercing ears with a sewing needle for fifty cents, Winnie – if that even is your name – I’m talking actual, illegal… things. Enterprises.”

“You’ve made that clear. I heard you.” 

The brunette was rubbing her face up and down, and Caleb wondered if she was in some kind of withdrawal. 

“Hey kid… Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why? What?” replied the girl – Caleb figured he would think of her as Winnie after all, since that was easier than just thinking of her as “the girl”, which was weird and made her seem like she was in some sort of film noir and that Caleb was about to be considering her “gams” or something equally off-color.

“Because you can’t keep your eyes focused for more than five seconds. What’s your deal?”

“I don’t have a deal.”

“Don’t play games with me, kiddo. I’ll drop you off by the side of the road,” Caleb told her gruffly. 

“Kiddo? Seriously?” Winnie snarled at him. “I’ve killed a man!”

Well, Caleb thought, this was starting to get interesting.

“Really?” he inquired. He stopped the RV and turned his head towards her. This he wanted to hear. Maybe, just maybe, this he could use – being out on his own was one thing but another pair of hands, one that was willing to work… Not that he could see this slip of a thing being much good at helping out. She wasn’t like Norma had been, all rough around the edges and willing to scrap with anyone. This girl seemed hollow, drugged from the inside out.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Winnie retorted. “He killed my father so I found him and I shot him. That’s why I can’t stay in town. They think I’m dead. So I’m not some little girl running away from home, Caleb – if that even is your name. If there’s a way to make money, I’ll do it.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll do whatever you want me to. I probably already have.”

“Calm down,” Caleb told her, and he was about to call her “kid” again, but thought better of it. “We need to figure out where we’re headed, then we can talk business.”

“Okay. You got any place in mind?” She put her hand in her hair and twirled it. She seemed nervous, but in a dulled sort of way, as if her emotions were on a delay. Whatever she was on, Caleb would have to commit to getting her off of it. That was the last thing he needed, her overdosing or losing her shit on some sort of a bad trip. But he wouldn’t bring it up right now, he’d wait. He had to wait until there was a right time.

Caleb thought about it. He still knew people back in Costa Rica, of course, but that was a long way to go and he wasn’t looking forward to crossing the border with Winnie in his passenger seat. Too many questions, and any and all answers were just bound to make him look shady. He could head for Canada, of course, that was always an option, but they might run into the same issue – it wasn’t like Winnie-the-fake-name was likely to have a passport, real or fake, on her person.

“Chicago,” he announced at last. “That’s where we’ll go.”

“Chicago? As in the pizza?” the girl asked, and Caleb sighed. This was going to be a lot of work. Maybe he’d get to live all the growing pains he’d missed by not knowing about Dylan.

Dylan. Caleb looked out the window again. Tears burned behind his eyelids, but damned if he’d shed them. The only people in the world who had ever seen his cry were his flesh and blood.  
But maybe, with enough time, he and this girl could be something like that. Some kind of found family like in one of those heartwarming children’s flicks. 

“I was going more for ‘as in Al Capone’, but okay. We can also get pizza.”

The girl’s eyes lit up, and for the first time since he’d picked her up, Caleb felt pretty decent bout this whole situation. If this girl was going to get that excited about the idea of a Chicago-style pizza, maybe she’d been living rougher than Caleb had thought at first glance. Maybe she needed someone as much as he did, as much as anyone did.

Maybe this was all going to work out. Or maybe it was just another disaster – but if it was, it wouldn’t be the first that Caleb had had to weather. 

“And what’s our plan? Once we get there?” Winnie asked. She was looking at him with rapt attention, with her eyes wide. Full faith. It sent a shiver up his spine, because it was what Norma used to do, back when Norma could trust him. Back when he was Norma’s world; back when she would follow him, wherever he dared to lead her.

This girl would be safe with him, he had to guarantee it. He wasn’t going to lose this one. He wasn’t going to break this new trust.

“We’re going to go to work.”


	3. Chapter 3

“So listen, man… I was thinking, what if we took a little trip out to… I don’t even know where, or even if we went camping or something like that?” Marco took a swig out of his beer and looked up at Jimmy McGill, his friend and quite frankly, his idol. It was almost like he was dreaming, like he was seeing someone from his past who couldn’t truly be here and he was going to blink his eyes and the man would be gone again.  
Because, didn’t Jimmy have better things to do these days than hang out with the likes of him?

“Camping?” Jimmy gave him an indulgent look and a smile. Jimmy was nice, like that. Things had been good ever since he had come back into town; it had been as if the prodigal son had returned. Except this was the prodigal best friend – the best, best friend he had ever had, the best con artist he had ever known. Jimmy was smart in a way Marco knew he would never truly understand, and he was okay with that. He just wanted him around, was all.

“Yeah, I mean… Since you’re back. Honestly, that’s one of those things I always wanted us to do. Just sit out and drink beer and look at the stars together. It’d be fun.” Marco looked away; if Jimmy was going to say no, it wasn’t like he was going to stare at him like a sad puppy or something. 

“Sounds pretty bad ass, Marco. We’d just need some time to get everything in order, you know? Get all our gear. How ‘bout this weekend, we run some more stuff, get us some money so we can afford all the camping stuff? And beer, of course. Even some binoculars and all those camping sets. Saw some good shit up at Sears last time I was there, actually.”  
Marco beamed. If there was one thing he always wanted to do, it was work. This work, at least, not standing around with his name stitched into his shirt and watching his life pass him by.   
Jimmy placed his beer back on the counter and gave a winning smile. He was back, and it was as if he had never left.

Marco could be happy now, really happy. He knew it. 

“I’ve got one. Just follow my lead, okay?”

Jimmy was heading over to a particularly clueless-looking guy wearing a blue suit when the door opened and two people walked in. 

Marco watched from the stool with interest – they didn’t look like they were from around here; they had something of the drifter look about both of them. The first to be noticed was a big hulking blonde wearing a tan coated that looked to be some kind of fake leather, and trailing behind him was a tiny girl with black hair who had a look on her face like she had just lost about ten of her favorite puppies.  
He was about to call Jimmy back, to see if maybe these were the two to ply their trade on. He wondered what their relationship was – the guy seemed too old to be the girl’s boyfriend, at least in most normal circles. Maybe they were father and daughter? Or maybe he had picked up this girl as some kind of teenage runaway and they were just stopping off on their way? Maybe she was headed to California to be a star, or something like that. People had a lot of big dreams; Marco knew that.

Marco couldn’t get Jimmy’s attention, couldn’t get him to turn around and notice him without being extremely obvious about the matter. Jimmy seemed to be having some kind of conversation with the girl – maybe he’d come up with the same plan independently; he probably had, now that Marco was thinking about it. Jimmy thought of everything. Marco would just sit here and wait. He knew how to cool his heels, to wait for the right moment.

Suddenly, the girl made a sharp left and started off to the back of the bar. Marco briefly wondered if the girl was even old enough to be in here. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had come into a bar with a fake ID, but something about the two made them stand out. Definitely not locals. Not locals meant good potential marks, but it also could mean trouble. What if this girl was some incredibly young FBI decoy, or someone from the Treasury department or the IRS? Maybe it was time to pull Jimmy out.

Then again, if Jimmy didn’t seem to think there was a problem, who was Marco to try and pull the plug? What did he know? Maybe he should just follow his friend’s lead – the idea of a best friend was vital for a reason, after all. If there was no trust there, if Marco just wanted to go off willy-nilly on his own, then he might as well go back to the mind-numbing existence he had been living while Jimmy was back in Albuquerque. Just the thought of it made him want to shudder up and down his body – it had been so many days, blurring into one another, with nothing to distinguish one from another. He had almost thought it was a mirage when Jimmy had appeared to him, had come back to him like… well, like a prodigal older brother, he figured.

Marco wrapped his arm around the beer in front of him. Something didn’t feel right. 

He was lost in thought by the time the girl sauntered over to him, and he barely heard what she was saying the first time.

He stared at her.

“What?” he asked, in a voice that was harsher than he had intended. 

“What I said was,” the girl began again, “I was wondering if you could help me with something. After all… You seem like a nice man.” She flashed a smile, and Marco wondered if this girl had shown up here to scam the scammer.

If so, she might be on to something.


	4. Chapter 4

Bradley could feel herself shivering from head to toe as she talked. Everything was cold, and something was ringing in her ears, and yet her mouth was making movements and words were coming out of her mouth. She put a hand on this man’s shoulder and she smiled at him, even as the touch made her want to run away. Not because this man was bad, not exactly, but because recently touching people hadn’t turned out well for her, not at all.

The man who had picked her up, where was he? – she suddenly couldn’t remember his name, couldn’t remember anyone’s name right now, not even her own (Was she Winnie here, or was she Bradley, or was she somebody else? Was she the girl who had shot a man in the head or was she the dazed blonde who watched the car drive past her in flames before realizing?)

“Are you okay?”

There he was, and he had a hand on her shoulder. He was a little too close but it was grounding, in a way, like coming back down instead of floating away.

She wanted to shake her head, or scream, or grab a gun again and kill a man for some reason or no reason at all.

But then she took a deep breath and she nodded.

“I’m fine.” She looked around the bar, considering the things they had been talking about before. Who could she draw out and make a mark? How did somebody do something like this, anyway? 

In a way, hadn’t she been doing it ever since she had run away, convincing people to help her for one reason or another? Except it had usually been more of a tit for tat, more of a quid pro quo, a…

She wouldn’t think of it right now. She would do what she needed to do.

She smiled at the man.

“I’m sorry. It’s been… a long drive. I was wondering…” She turned her hip to the side ever so slightly and smiled an innocent smile.

“You were wondering…?” the man prompted; his tongue was almost hanging out of his mouth. This was going to be almost too easy.

“I was wondering if you know where a girl could stay the night.” She batted her eyelashes.

“Well,” the man replied, “A woman could stay the night at my place, but a girl would probably have to show me her driver’s license. I don’t want to end up in some kind of sting operation. Prison wouldn’t suit me, just trust me on this.”

“Why not?” Bradley asked, but she was already feeling the wind rushing out of her sails. It was probably a good thing on the grand scale that this man wasn’t chomping at the bit – a man not lusting after underage girls was generally a good thing – but it didn’t bode well for her future as a con-artist.

“Let’s just say I have a bit of a record.”

Bradley snaked out her hand and landed in on his collar; she made a bit of a purring noise.

“Oh? What for?”

“I shit in a man’s sunroof.”

Bradley dropped her hand, stared, and then turned and walked away.

“Hey! I have a completely logical explanation for that!”

***

“Well, in your defense, you couldn’t have seen that one coming,” Caleb told her, back at the motel. 

“I’m a failure,” Bradley blurted. She was tearing up – she didn’t want to, couldn’t cry, not anymore – and her hands were clenched tight. She wanted to kick something. She wasn’t any good at being Winnie Jones, wasn’t any good at living this life; she wished she could go back for good, go back to being Bradley Martin, to having everything and anything a girl could want. To being a face, a popular girl, someone who people looked up to and envied and wanted to be.

Not this person who was always slipping, who was always nearly falling off the face of the Earth and trying desperately to hang on to something.

“No one gets it right the first time,” Caleb told her. “You know what they say – practice makes perfect. Plus, I get the feeling we weren’t getting anything from that guy, regardless – I’m pretty sure he and his friend are professional con artists.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, pretty sure they’ve been at this longer than we have.”

Bradley stared at him and took a swat at his jacket in anger.

“Then why’d you get me go out there and make a fool out of myself?”

Caleb shrugged.

“Because you had to figure out whether you could do it. And you can. Even if you don’t always come out ahead. But you have to level with me. If we’re going to be partners, I’m going to need to know the real story. And you’re not Winnie whatever, I know that much. So let’s start with, what’s your real name?”

“Bradley Martin,” Bradley blurted, before she could really stop herself.

Sure, she’d come up with the fake name when she had first escaped, but other than the handful of jobs she had applied for (that had all asked for documents she couldn’t produce), most people hadn’t cared what her name was. So she was Winnie, usually, but some days she was Clara or Meg or whatever the first name that came to mind was. It wasn’t as if most of the people she saw had cared to come around more than once. She had been a transient, so she had traveled. It had seemed like she would walk forever.

Now here she was in Chicago, and for a second she was Bradley Martin again. It was like putting on an old set of clothing that she had forgotten she had owned, or opening up a photo album she thought she had lost.

“Bradley,” Caleb echoed.

She let her eyes flutter shut. She felt like she was falling.

“That’s me.”


	5. Chapter 5

Jimmy was thinking about Chuck. That in and of itself wasn’t that weird – ever since he’d found out how Chuck had gone behind his back to HHM, any and all free time he had tended to bring his thoughts back to his brother. Even though he was still furious at him, he couldn’t help but wonder how Chuck was getting along without Jimmy looking after him. Knowing Chuck, he would find a way one way or another, but Jimmy couldn’t help but worry.

If he wasn’t confined to his house, maybe Chuck would have left to go find him, to bring him back and set him straight.

Or at least, Jimmy’s version of Chuck would. The real Chuck seemed to fall flat, to be something less than Jimmy had always envisioned him to be. He remembered being a little kid and staring up at Chuck, thinking he was something all-powerful and all-knowing. He had always, always wanted to be just like Chuck. 

And now he was seeing the cracks beneath the perfect façade; more than he had when Chuck had gotten sick, for sure. More than when Rebecca had left him. 

It had seemed, when he was younger, than Chuck’s hard-assery had always been for Jimmy’s benefit – he had seemed firm but fair. Jimmy could remember the days that Chuck had babysat for him when he was a kid, and he’d never let him get away with a damn thing.

Jimmy had resented it, but at the same time he’d been proud of his big brother. Chuck seemed to know everything, seemed to be able to do anything, while Jimmy seemed to slip and fall, both on purpose and by accident. 

And then he’d realized that Chuck could play a much dirtier game than him.

What was he planning on doing about it, though? That was the question.

If he went back home, what would be waiting for him?

***

“Marco,” Jimmy called the next morning. “You remember that girl from the bar?”

“Yeah? How could I forget. The barely-legal one. She looked like she walked out of Seventeen magazine.”

“Yeah, if Seventeen is doing a spread on the scary later days of their models. She looked like a runaway.”

“Yeah, okay?”

“…Maybe we ought to try and help her?” Jimmy ventured. 

Marco snorted and walked back over to the fridge. He opened it and proceeded to take out another beer.

“You can’t tell me that you’re falling for her innocent act.”

“You’re the one who said she looked like a model, or whatever. I’m just trying to be a good person.”

Marco chuckled.

“You’re trying to get some. You’re trying to go after jailbait. Listen, friends don’t let friends attend prom when they’re thirty-five. That’s all I’m gonna say on the matter.”

“I’m just saying that maybe… Maybe we could look into the situation a bit. Yeah, maybe I’m getting soft in my… middle age… but it would be good to know for sure.”

“What’s your plan?”

Jimmy chewed his lip.

“To be honest, I haven’t come up with one yet. All of this has kind of been burning out my brain, between the cons and the drinking.” Jimmy turned over the glass that had somehow gotten stuck, upside down, to the table overnight. “Marco, has it ever occurred to you that maybe we’re getting too old to do this? Or too old to do it properly, maybe?”

Marco shrugged.

“What else would we do?”

“…Well, back home… Back in Albuquerque, I meant, I’m a lawyer. An old people lawyer, actually.”

“So old people just continually give you money? Hell, man, that’s the best scam I’ve ever heard!”

“It’s not a scam, actually,” Jimmy told him sheepishly, “They… well, they sort of rely on me. I don’t know if I’ll be able to retire completely… I write their wills. And I don’t know how long some of them are going to be around to write them.”

Marco chuckled.

“Well, if I’m looking to kick it one of these days, I’ll hire you to give all my shit… to you. Maybe my family can get the leftovers.”

Jimmy glared at him.

“You’re not allowed to ever die, Marco – okay? We haven’t accomplished even a tenth of what we’re meant to accomplish.”

Marco looked at him.

“Meant to? I never really knew you to… think so big, before.”

Jimmy felt a pang. Marco truly looked up to him – maybe he should have done better by him, pulled him out of this life, found him something else the way Chuck had done for him. But Chuck… Chuck had turned out to be a backstabber. Jimmy could never hurt Marco like that…

Unless he already had.

Maybe his mistake had been leaving with Chuck, was trying to be something better and forgetting about the person who had truly been there for him. Maybe all of who he really was, was tied up here, with Marco, in Chicago.

It was going to be hard to figure it all out, though. Maybe Kim was waiting for him back home and maybe in some way, Chuck was too. But he had to stay here, not to punish Chuck or to hide away, but to figure out who Jimmy McGill really was at the end of the day – Jimmy McGill, Esquire, or Slippin’ Jimmy?

It was going to be hard to find the answers. He didn’t know if he would find them in Albuquerque any easier than here, but he knew he had to find them one way or another. Then he could hold his head high against whatever bullshit Chuck wanted to tell him, and he could be whoever he truly was, underneath the bells and whistles and cons and expectations of everyone, including himself.

And maybe this girl was, somehow, some part of that. He wouldn’t know for sure until he found her, though.

“Marco, get dressed.”

“I am dressed…” 

Jimmy ignored him.

“We’re going to go find the girl and help her. Or… or something like that.”


	6. Chapter 6

Caleb always thought of Norma, all the time and every day. It depended on the circumstances exactly what he was thinking about, but the thoughts usually followed a series of different categories – regrets, yearnings and memories.

Not that the latter two didn’t cross over with regret. They always did. Every move he had made at seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… every disastrous teenage ploy to try and keep her close, had been one big regret. Because he had been selfish, and in selfishness had been born a kind of cruelty that he hadn’t thought himself capable of at the time.

He hoped that she was safe. He hadn’t heard a single word from her since they had parted ways in font of the motel, and he hadn’t heard from Dylan since their last, clipped conversation. 

Where Caleb had called from a pay phone and Dylan had sounded like he was done with being disappointed.

What had led Caleb to think that whatever he was doing now, with this girl, was anything less of a complete disaster? The girl was fragile, and he was basically an atomic bomb on legs, ready to destroy anything he came into contact with.

But if not him… what did she have? How had she even been surviving before? He remembered what it had been like to be eighteen, to be nineteen, to not be ready to survive in the world but finding himself needing to anyway. He could remember sleeping at bus stops and in drug houses, looking for whatever deal came along, no matter the danger.

He could remember wishing he could be back at home with Norma, even as he crawled out of his skin to hear his parents fight. To hide under the bed and hope they wouldn’t find him and pull him out, back when he was too small to defend himself or his little sister.

He could remember looking at the person he valued most in his life and falling in love with her… 

No, he wasn’t going to think about that. Not now. Norma had forgiven him; that much was true. But it was better to stay away, not to keep poking at the wound. He needed to let Norma heal, and to let himself find redemption somehow.

Maybe this was part of the way.

Bradley, as she was apparently named (odd name, Caleb considered, but then again how did somebody decide what kind of name was weird and what wasn’t?), was fast asleep in the adjoining bed. He was only noticing now just how rail-thin the girl was – maybe she always had been, but there was something sad about it too. Something lonely, or missing, as if she had been on her own for a long time now, longer than a kid of her age should ever be alone.

That was something Caleb knew about, though the days of him being that small and skinny were long since gone. The days of him not being able to defend himself were long since gone.

He reached down and gently pulled the blanket over her, only stopping at the end to wonder if that was creepy. He’d long since lapsed into creepy at some point about Norma, and he was well-aware of it but not entirely sure how to change.

In lieu of changing, he had left. And in leaving, he had broken his own heart.

Bradley didn’t wake, not yet at least, so whether she felt it was creepy remained unseen. 

He would have to figure that all out in time.

***

“I shouldn’t have told you all of that,” was the first thing that Bradley said to him the next morning, “It was stupid. Just forget all of it.”

“It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone,” Caleb told her. “I have a warrant. I’m not really running off to tell anyone about what other people are doing.”

She crossed ahead of him, almost to the bathroom, and picked up a coffee mug.

“I hate it,” she told him, “Being dead, I mean. It seemed like a good idea for a while, though.”

“What was your life like before? I mean, before you ended up killing a guy and had to go on the run.”

She rubbed at her face and looked at Caleb.

“It was wonderful. At least, I think it was. I was partying all the time, drinking, and hanging out with people who… well, I guess they didn’t get me, but I thought they did. All of them, and my boyfriend too. They all seemed real up until the only thing that seemed real was that life sucked ass.”

“Sounds pretty reasonable.”

She made a low hum.

“Can’t say that I totally understand though. I didn’t exactly grow up in the same…milieu as you.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“The only thing I’m actually surprised about is that you just used the word ‘milieu.’”

“I read, sometimes,” Caleb said, pretending to be offended. Logically, there wasn’t anything he should like about this girl – he remembered the type, the ones that Norma would come home from school crying over because they’d made fun of her. The ones who his white trash friends mooned over but who wouldn’t pay them the time of day.

Logically, he knew this was the kind of girl Bradley was, but he also knew that it didn’t matter. 

He had been gifted, by fate or whatever it was, with another innocent life in his hands. He could screw it up and squander it like he had so many times before, or he could choose to do something with it. Maybe his plan to turn them into con artists wasn’t going to be the right one, but at least she’d have someone protecting her. Too many people were out, alone and lost in the world.

It wasn’t that Caleb knew what to do about any of it all.

But he was going to be there, and that was a start.


	7. Chapter 7

She should leave while he was sleeping; that was the answer. She shouldn’t have told him about any of it and now she had ruined it. Now she would have to leave all over again, and this time she couldn’t even come back to Norman.

It had been a shot in the dark, anyway. Norman had helped save her life, had gotten Dylan to help too, but he wasn’t the same boy after she got back any more than she was the same girl. 

She could leave, now, leave them all behind. Sure, it was a fun idea – get to be a con artist and live life like she was in a movie or something. But that wasn’t reality. Reality was what she got in the pit of her stomach whenever she woke up in the morning. 

She wanted to jump out of a moving car, because she just couldn’t do it anymore.

Somehow, she was still here. Somehow, she hadn’t jumped off the bridge again. But how? 

In her mind, she was always on the bridge. Always letting go. 

She gathered up her things and made her way to the door. She would find another place, or maybe she would find another bridge. Only time would tell.

It was stupid, that she had gotten nostalgic and come back to Norman. The way she had rejected him before… she should have known it would never work. Who could put their whole life on hold for her?

Who would want to?

She put her hand on the door and pressed it, wondering if Caleb would miss her. Probably not – she was only slowing him down, anyway. And if he wanted another young girl, she was sure he could find one along the way. It had all just been a brief thing – it wasn’t like he assumed she was going to stay here forever, right?

She had never stayed somewhere very long.

***

Caleb awoke to the sound of small feet against carpet. He remembered when he had been young, a teenager, lying next to Norma and awoken by mice running around in their house – it had scared them both, but a night without them was almost worse. They had become the closest thing the pair had to pets, and they almost looked forward to catching a glimpse of their wide eyes on their tiny bodies. 

He blinked his eyes a few times to remind himself that he wasn’t home. That that had been a very long time ago; he had been a different person yet. A person who hadn’t bargained away their soul to scare the person they loved most into staying with them.

A person whose eyes bled every night.

“Bradley?” he called out. Weird name, stupid name the girl had, but what was he to say about it? Maybe Caleb was a stupid name just the same. Who had his parents even named him and Norma after? Had they just picked names at random because they were unfortunate enough to keep having kids? “Bradley? Are you there?”

There was a sound of creaking and moving.

“Yeah. I’m here.” He couldn’t quite see in the dark, but the voice sounded defeated, like he had caught her. Maybe trying to escape?

“You okay? Sounds like you’re trying to take off on me…”

“Maybe that would be better. I mean, I’m just slowing you down anyway.”

Caleb stood up and turned on the light, raising his eyes to look at the girl. 

“You’re not slowing anybody down. But if you decide you want to take off and I have to run after you and track you down – yeah, then you might take me a bit out of my way.” 

The light was shining in his eyes, now, and he raised his hand above his head to try to shield them. In the light, he could truly tell how young Bradley Martin really was. She looked like a Missing Persons poster, like an extra in some episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. 

“Why don’t you head back to bed and we’ll discuss in the morning?” he continued. 

“What? So I can keep being a drag on you and you have to pull me along for like ten more cities?” Bradley snapped back. “I can make it on my own, you know. I did it before, didn’t I?”

“Maybe you can make it on your own. I don’t know if you can or can’t.” Caleb stepped forward, trying not to spook her if he could help it. “But why would you choose to? Or, I don’t know – maybe stay for me. It’s lonely out here when you’re on your own. Trust me on that.”

Bradley let out a short, choked laugh.

“You can’t be serious. You’re seriously telling me you’d rather have me along? Like I’m not all dead weight? Like I’m actually contributing something?”

Caleb chuckled.

“This isn’t the apocalypse, Bradley. There’s no such thing as dead weight.”

“It’s pretty much the same thing. There’s no room for people who can’t contribute.”

“You’re contributing company.” Caleb took another step, to find himself at her elbow. He wouldn’t scare her off, he wouldn’t. He had scared too many people off in his lifetime. He would be what he had always wanted to be – a safe place. He lowered his voice. Something in his head reminded him that he could convince people of anything, but he pushed that to the side. She wouldn’t survive on her own, at least not how she was. Maybe she already was someone else, somewhat cold – but a person didn’t have to become that if they weren’t alone. “Now, come on and head back to bed. It’s late. We have a big day tomorrow, don’t we?”

Bradley rocked on her feet and looked back and forth between Caleb and the door.

Eventually she sat back down on the bed.

“Oh?” she asked. “What are we doing?’

Caleb would let her know as soon as he found out.


	8. Chapter 8

Marco wasn’t sure whether he was happy or sad to see that the man and the girl had returned to the bar. He had assumed that the two of them would have kept whatever show they had moving on down the road; he knew the type, usually, and they usually didn’t stay for long.

Marco and Jimmy had had it covered, once upon a time, and there’s no need to try to open up a Mom and Pop shop across the street from a Wal-Mart.

He turned and looked over at Jimmy. What was their course of action now? Save the girl? Battle the guy? Ride off into the sunset at the end of it all?

Marco was eager to do any and all of that; at least, he hoped he was. In the last few days, he’d had the most fun he had had in a long time – but he also had begun to feel tired, worn at the edges, and the beginnings of burnout. But was that from the con life (he hoped not, GOD he hoped not)? Or from the monotony that surrounded it? 

He was cut out of his thoughts by Jimmy grabbing his shoulder. He shivered a little (hopefully only inside – he had to stay cool as a cucumber, that was the con, that was the game and the win), turning to look at his friend.

“I don’t see ‘em,” he said, but it came out like a question. He wasn’t sure why there was something hanging on in the back of his mind, telling him that those two were important for some reason. Maybe it was some kind of fate, like Jimmy coming back after being gone for so long. 

What was the back-up plan, he wondered, if the two weren’t there at all? Somewhere along the line, Jimmy had decided he wanted to give back or pay it forward or whatever, and Marco wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with that. Sure, in a lot of ways he was still the same old Jimmy, but…. There was something else, too, and he didn’t know whether it was good or bad.

He could remember, like it was yesterday (so many days fading for him, now, it seemed), the first day he had met Jimmy McGill. 

They had been kids – well, not kids exactly, but close enough to it. Marco had been twelve or thirteen and Jimmy around the same age.

He’d gone into Jimmy’s dad’s store – though of course he didn’t know that was Jimmy’s dad at the time. He had bought something, couldn’t remember what, and as he’d left he had caught a glimpse of a kid sitting at the back on a stool, peeking at a copy of Playboy.

Something had made Marco walk over to him, some little voice telling him that this was fate. That they were two people meant to be together. 

Thinking about it now, it felt like they were some kind of soulmates. Not that Marco thought about it like that exactly – no, of course not. He liked women, women, women. Though he liked beer (and Jimmy) more.

He wasn’t ready to turn that part over in his head any more than he had to. 

But he had walked over to Jimmy McGill and put out his hand, even though most of the other kids laughed at Marco if he tried to talk to them, or called him fat, or acted like he wasn’t worth talking to.

Jimmy had looked up and smiled at him, putting the magazine away with a tiny, private smirk that Marco had felt was just for him in a way. Then he had asked, “Hey, so what do you want to do?”

He remembered it now, how natural it had all felt, like walking through the dew after a rainy day. 

But Jimmy had left; he had gone to Albuquerque and the days had become long and dark and boring, all running together. Maybe he could have written, or maybe he could have called. But Jimmy could have, too, and yet he hadn’t. 

“Jimmy,” Marco said, taking a seat at the bar. “What if we never see these people again? I mean, they were probably just passing through. If that girl is a runaway, she probably can’t stay anywhere for very long, can she?”

“They’ll be here,” Jimmy replied, sitting next to him. Marco wondered if his friend had been born that confident, or if it had just been luck of the draw over time.  
Marco began to hum “Smoke on the Water” under his breath, and Jimmy smiled at him. 

Even if Marco didn’t exactly believe in this whole plan, at least they were together.

He paused in his singing long enough to ask, “And if they’re not? What’s our plan then, Jimmy?”

His friend shrugged.

“Who said we always need a plan? Maybe we can just… live a little, while I’m out here.”

Marco forced a smile, not wanting to react to that choice of words. While I’m out here? Meant that he was going back, and maybe he even knew when. Leaving   
Marco behind again to pick up the pieces and try to live his dull, boring life without him.

But what could he say to stop it? 

He wanted his friend to stay; he never wanted to close the curtains and live in the dark, in black and white when Jimmy was perfect color every time he walked into a room. How was he going to tell him that, though, and not have him take it the wrong way?

He wanted to tell him everything, wanted to explain all the ways he needed him to stick around and keep Marco’s life moving in a circle. 

But what kind of burden was that to put on your best friend? He couldn’t be that person.

“That’s right – let’s live. While you’re out here. While we wait, you know.”


	9. Chapter 9

Caleb stood in the corner watching as Bradley slept and sighing. Maybe he should take her somewhere else, keep on moving – he knew just as well as anyone that to be “dead”, you couldn’t set up any roots.

Being dead was the same as having a warrant – you shouldn’t set your feet down for long, couldn’t rest for longer than it took you to find enough money to move to the next place. It had been a lonely life for Caleb, one he had lived since he had been in his 20’s. It would be lonelier for a teenage girl, no doubt. 

There were things that men like Caleb could do to get by, a lot of things. Not all of them pleasant, of course – he tried not to think of the man in the truck, tried not to remember the blood and the yelling. 

For Bradley, the options must have been less… and less pleasant, still.

He needed to protect her, no matter what it took. She was small and thin and fragile and everything that Caleb didn’t want broken (not now, not this time). But what could he do? He was, after all, utterly broken himself, and probably not someone who should be spending a lot of time with a teenager considering the past.

Yet, here he was.

He listened as she stirred in her sleep, curling around herself and letting out a long sigh. This was creepy, definitely – but oddly comforting; to make sure that she wasn’t going to try to leave again and that she was safe.

He wondered if Norma were safe back home. If Dylan was safe. Maybe he shouldn’t have rushed off, not with Chick ready to come back angrier than ever any day now. 

But he had never been one to sit and think about consequences; had only ever been one to act.

And now he was here, doing it all over again. Maybe some people never really learned.

***

“How’d you sleep?”

“I slept… I mean… Not well. I was taking sleeping pills for a while, but I ran out. Now I can barely get an hour or two.”

Caleb’s lips pursed. 

“You shouldn’t be on sleeping pills…” he began.

He shut his eyes for just a moment, remembered his back pressing against a wooden door as he doubled over and tried not to cry. 

He had loved her, even though he had tried not to. He had loved her and she had never loved him, he was sure of it, not for a second. 

And he had had to live with that.

That was just the way that Frannie had been, the way she was made. He had reached out, and she had always shut him down. He hadn’t understood. She was so closed up inside herself that there hadn’t been any room for Caleb or Norma. 

Maybe it had been his fault. A lot of things had been. Maybe she had looked inside him and seen that there was nothing really there; nothing worthy of love, at least.

Nothing worthy of love from anyone.

Norma had loved him, though – that had been her mistake, her misstep. And he had shot it all to hell. Maybe he should just tell the girl to turn around and go home, even if neither of them knew where “home” actually was.

Before he was bad for her, too. Before he hurt her, somehow, the way that he hurt everyone. The way that he drew bad things in wherever he went. He hurt people, and then he ran, leaving dust and pain in his wake. It was a wonder anyone let him come back at all.

“What are you thinking about?” Bradley asked him, and he found words difficult to come by. What should he tell her – all about his past? Maybe she deserved to know who her travel companion really was.

“A lot of things,” he replied. “None of which I’m going to lay on you, though. You’re just a kid… Bradley. Or whatever your name is.”

She smirked.

“Bradley’s dead. I don’t know who I am.”

“You’ve got a while to find out.”

She snorted.

“Maybe. Or the rest of my life is just going to be more boring, horrible shit, one right after the other. I really thought Norman might come with me, too. Maybe that’s where I was wrong. I let myself think that... maybe he would want to come with me.”

“Norman has a lot of things to worry about,” Caleb told her, trying to be as gentle as possible. “He’s not entirely… right.”

“And I am?” Bradley fluttered her eyelashes at him and let out a manic little giggle.

She wasn’t wrong; Caleb knew that much. But what could he do? 

“You don’t need to be around Norman. That kid… he’s a ticking time bomb. You don’t want to be around once the countdown starts.”

She snorted.

“I shot a man in the head once. I’m a countdown, too.”

Caleb rolled his eyes.

“I am, too. Trust me. You don’t even know. But let’s deal with one issue at a time. Does that work for you?”

“Do you like me?”

Caleb gaped at her for a long while; it was such an odd question that he wasn’t sure he had heard her properly at first. But there she was. Sitting there asking him did he like her. What was the right answer to that question?

Caleb wasn’t used to the idea of liking people, whatever that entailed exactly. There were the two people in the world he loved – Norma and Dylan. And then there were those he would protect because they were in one of their orbits – Emma, of course, Gunnar and even, to his chagrin, Norman. But like? Had he liked anyone in a long, long time? 

Or did he just tolerate or protect, depending on what he needed at any given time?

He wasn’t answering, and it was making Bradley visibly nervous. 

Caleb rocked back on his heels and sighed.

“Yeah… I guess… I guess I like you.”


	10. Chapter 10

Chuck had once glowered at Jimmy and then said incredulously, “You don’t even feel bad for the things you do, do you?”

It had been meant as chastisement – a tone Jimmy knew all too well when it came to his brother. But there had been something else there too, something Jimmy hadn’t put his finger on at the time. Now, it was flashing red lights for him – jealousy. Jealousy had been like a third brother, or maybe an obnoxious cousin who always stayed too long. 

Jimmy had wanted to be Chuck for as long as he could remember, the way some boys want to be Superman or Spiderman. Chuck had this odd quality about him, as if he knew everything but just wasn’t going to let on, in order to keep the mere mortals guessing. It was as if he had all of the knowledge in the world in the palm of his hand like some sort of glowing orb of light.

Chuck had been this way his entire life, it seemed, and there was no chance of stopping anytime soon. Maybe he had popped out the womb like this; perhaps he rolled over in his crib and made a judgment call about anyone in the vicinity.

But Jimmy could remember being three years old and curling up in Chuck’s bed beside him, feeling as if his brother was the only warm thing in the world. It was hard to hate him, as much as he really should. As much as he really need to.

It hurt, Chuck’s betrayal. And it had hurt the years he had looked after Chuck, the days in which he had become the caretaker himself. He didn’t want Chuck to be this way, but maybe Chuck thought that he did, that he enjoyed the role reversal, that he was laughing at Chuck behind his back (with who, though?). 

Jimmy shook his head. Chuck wasn’t important now, because he wasn’t going back home. Or maybe, he didn’t need to go home because this was home. He didn’t know anymore, and he needed to be okay with not caring, either.

Chuck had thought he had never cared, so why not just make him right for once?

This was something he was good at, always had been. 

Jimmy sighed. Marco was depending on him; he needed to remember that part. Marco didn’t think he was a failure, and Marco hadn’t called him a chimp with a gun. 

He needed Marco. 

***

Trying to do the right thing tended to make life more complicated for Jimmy McGill, but it also gave off a strange sense of relief. Maybe it was Catholic guilt coming back to roost, because he certainly hand handfuls of it to spare. Maybe that was why Chuck was the way he was; maybe he just enjoyed marinating in guilt all day. 

Marco snapped him out of his thoughts, literally, by snapping right next to his head.

“Earth to Jimmy! What’s our plan? I see the girl right over there.” Marco pointed to her, and Jimmy swung his hand down to move down Marco’s finger. Way to make it obvious, Marco, he thought, but then felt guilty – the only reason Marco was being obvious these days was because Jimmy had left him alone for far too long. When you leave a student alone, they forget all of their studies.

“I see her,” Jimmy whispered back, “But let’s act like we don’t. Don’t wanna spook the deer, you know.”

“You’re talking about a deer… Now I just kind of want some venison.” Marco smiled and lowered his own voice. “Okay. But what’s our move, anyway? If this girl is on the run, I don’t think she’s going to really be looking for advice from two random dudes. And you have to admit that we don’t have the most sterling reputation in the books.”

“We’ll just…” Jimmy paused. He always had a plan – what was making him feel lost in it right now? Why was he choking? He never, ever choked. This had to be Chuck all over again. “Wait.”

He swallowed and tried to push all thoughts of Chuck to the side. Why should he be here, now, in his head, at the time that he was finally doing the right thing? And he wasn’t sitting here trying to offer people law services, so Chuck ought to be thanking him. Chimp with a machine gun, his ass. He was going to do what he wanted to do. No angel/devil combo on the shoulder for him.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” He put on a slight Southern accent, out of place though it may have been. 

The brunette stared up at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Um… Hi?”

“I noticed you here before, you know – and I want you to know, that… I just want to make sure that you’re okay. You seem a little young to be out here on your own, you know.” 

She turned around with a huff.

“I’m old enough.”

“I’m sure that you are. But… I’d say the same thing to my sister, you know. Or would hope that someone would say the same to her. She’s just a hair older than you – nineteen, a freshman at University of Wisconsin, Madison. I miss her everyday.” The words came easy – he’d created whole families, family trees of cousins and stepsiblings he almost wished he had (especially when he considered that all he really had was Chuck anymore, he’d trade him for a whole fake family in a second). 

“Yeah, thanks,” the girl replied, “But I’m just fine. I’m here with…” There was a pause as she cocked her head back towards the blonde haired man. “My uncle. And we’re going to be just fine.” Her eyes darkened. “You’re not the first who’s asked, though. I get a lot of questions.”

She turned and scattered off, and Jimmy found himself wondering exactly what he’d said. Was the girl that spooked? Or was there something going on here that he, for once, didn’t want to be a part of?


End file.
